


Uncompromising

by mrs_leary (julie)



Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-07
Updated: 2011-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-28 10:00:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/pseuds/mrs_leary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Acting out a tragic gay love story in a film Made Them Do It.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uncompromising

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Namaresca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Namaresca/gifts).



> For **namaresca** … this probably isn’t what you wanted, hon, but this is what I wrote… on my BlackBerry while on the train to Manchester… being careful not to email the instalments to my boss instead of me, as she disconcertingly shares my initials and a couple of other random letters as well, and let’s face it I’ve done stupider things! ♥

♦

It was a fuck–or–die scenario. Not for real, of course, but in this film they were making. He and Bradley were playing Nic and Steve, two naïve British students backpacking through Europe during the long summer break, and heading just a little too far into the unknown, taking just one too many risks. Now they were being held hostage for some improbable ransom which neither of their families could possibly pay, and as the days stretched on, their cruel minder – queer and wanting them both, but impotent – was forcing them to fuck each other while he watched.

It was their own stupid fault. Colin and Bradley’s, that is. They’d insisted to the agent they shared that if they were going to co–star in something during the _Merlin_ hiatus, it had better be something uncompromising, something a million miles away from Merlin and Arthur… They could hardly claim they hadn’t asked for it.

So anyway, Nic – gay, and long in love with his mate from their school days – had volunteered to service their minder in any way he liked. Anything to protect Steve. When it became clear that wasn’t an option, he’d suggested that Steve could fuck him, he didn’t mind. Of course their minder soon saw what would be the cruellest act of all. And he was the one with the guns, and the vicious compatriots who visited at random hours of the day and night, and he was locked into this place with them, bored and craving distraction. They had to agree.

 _‘Close your eyes,’ Nic said with rough sorrow. ‘Close your eyes, mate.’_

They had spent all the previous day in rehearsals, starting with endless discussions of motivation and background, minute dissections of their actions, reactions, changing feelings, fleeting thoughts. Then they’d blocked it out, going through the motions – just phoning it in, really. The director had let them get away with it. And that had honestly been bad enough.

Nothing had prepared Colin for the reality of it.

It wasn’t like he didn’t already know what a naturalistic, visceral actor Bradley was. But nothing had prepared Colin for the sight of Bradley stretched naked – _more_ than naked before him, limbs loose and trembling, lips bitten raw, breath coming in shallow gasps, eyes wide and wet and panicked.

Bradley was hard – they both were – and in some ways he wanted this. Steve wanted this. Something animalistic within him wanted this, even if that were only a small aspect of the physical parts of him. The rest of him was terrified, and silently crying out in revulsion. And yet even then Steve looked up at his friend, the young man he’d known since boyhood, since long before sex and their differing sexualities could possibly be an issue between them – Steve looked up at him and quietly said, ‘It’s all right, mate. It’ll be all right.’

And Nic – Colin – had gasped in shock. That hadn’t been scripted. But it had been _so very right_. Bradley was like that – vivid in his choices, understated in his delivery. Colin – Nic – dragged in a ragged breath, and lay a shaky hand carefully on Bradley’s – Steve’s thigh. ‘Close your eyes, darlin’. Just close your eyes.’

Colin lost track, then, of what was real and what was acting, of what was Nic and Steve, what was Colin and Bradley. He forgot about the minder watching salacious and revolting, forgot about the other actor, the camera and director and crew, the cold empty set, the fact they were still safe and not so far from the home counties. His world reduced to Bradley’s panic overlaid by the resolution necessary to get through this, to not make it any harder than it had to be for his friend. There was nothing more for him than Bradley’s panting little breaths, his shivering responses as Colin tried to prepare him, his unflagging excitement outdone only by his eternal wish to be anywhere but here.

And then finally it was The Moment. They’d run through the preliminaries five times already to get different takes, different angles. But then finally – without taking a break, cos that would have just killed them at this point – Colin mimed Nic pushing inside his friend, his love, and he let out a great heaving sob as he did so, cos some of this was true, so true – he loved Bradley, he’d been in love with him for _years_ now despite Bradley’s apparently genuine inability to imagine that anyone could possibly love him – Colin sobbed as Nic felt what he’d yearned for for so long, as he hurt his love, tore into his friend despite his best care – and Steve cried out in pain, but then gathered himself again, gathered himself and looked up at Nic, said in a strained voice, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right.’

The rest was a blank horror of pain and pleasure, relief and terror all mixed together, and thank heavens the director had organised to capture this in one take, cos he couldn’t have done it again, he just couldn’t. And as he forced himself to slow, as Steve reached down to help bring himself off, cos that was what they’d had to agree to, Colin cried real tears.

♦

He felt filthy afterwards. Colin ran, or as good as, locked the door to his hotel room and escaped into the shower, scrubbed himself as clean as he could – scrubbed himself clean in all the ways but what mattered most.

It was the destruction of their friendship, of course. Steve and Nic’s, anyway. They somehow gathered themselves together as their minder grew complacent, and they escaped – though it was already too late – they survived a trek through barren lands. And then once Nic was sure that Steve was safe, they parted, and Nic unable to bear what he’d done to his friend, his love, had surrendered to the romantic notion of throwing himself off a bridge into an impassable river, suffering a horrible and very _un_ romantic death – Steve realising too late what he’d lost, and the last shot lingering on Bradley’s pale stricken face against the sickly greens of some anonymous morgue after he’d been required to identify what remained of his friend, his love.

Colin reached for the bottle of whisky he’d bought for just such contingencies, and downed a few shaky gulps. Had to sit down for long moments, then, and wait for the dizzy nausea to pass.

He was just reaching to take another swig when there was a knock at the door, quiet but insistent. He knew who it would be. Tears threatened to blur his vision, but he had to answer. If Bradley was feeling even half as conflicted and ill as Colin was, then… He didn’t know what then. He’d never felt such confusion before, such an alarming lack of boundaries between the real and the act, the emotions and the work. It was the scariest thing out, but he loved Bradley – he knew it then, it was the crappiest timing _ever_ , but he knew then that it wasn’t lust or like or want or need – or rather it was all those things wrapped up together with love as well, and if he did anything now to stuff up their friendship, he would just die a little. Not as literally as Nic, but just as truly.

All of that passed through him – through his mind his feelings his instincts – in the time it took to step to the door and open it. To find Bradley standing there pale and stricken. To wordlessly give way and invite him in.

Bradley was standing there stiffly, keeping his distance, but pleading, ‘I don’t know what to _do_ with this. Please… I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind.’

‘O’ course,’ he managed roughly, stepping back again, towards the bed. ‘Course I don’t mind.’

‘I’m using you,’ Bradley muttered as he followed, inevitably followed, his hands already reaching.

‘I want to be used,’ Colin replied –

And then they were kissing, as they hadn’t done all that day, they were kissing but it wasn’t a gentle thing, it was harsh and needy and the most amazing thing Colin had ever felt.

♦

Confusion again, though caused by urgency now, not a vanishing of boundaries. Bradley’s hands demanding on him, and Colin falling back, bringing him down with him, so close so hot and needy, both of them hard, so hard. ‘God!’ he cried out, praying, pleading. ‘God, you can have me if you want.’ – ‘Are you –?’ – ‘Yes! God, have me. I want, oh God, I  _want_ …’ – ‘D’you have –?’ And he did, of course he did, but they didn’t have time to stop, they had to – they had to –

With a growl Bradley knelt up, wrestled his jeans apart and shoved them down his thighs, while Colin fumblingly did the same with his own – Bradley fell back desperately against him, hips already rolling against him like the deepest ocean swell, powerful, deadly. ‘Like this?’ he asked tersely even as he did it. – ‘Yes! Yes!’ Colin groaning in need – ‘All right?’ Bradley asked, as concerned as Steve had been, but oh so much more involved – and the end when it came as it must too soon too soon wasn’t painful as Steve’s had been, but just as intense. Colin following him down with a sob, the salty splatter pungent between them, and then Bradley falling away to lie beside him, not touching except where Bradley’s arm was flung haphazardly across Colin’s.

Silence for a long while, which Colin daren’t break.

And then at last Bradley said, ‘Did you mean it? You’d let me?’

And yes Colin was ready again, the dull aching need never leaving him now, it would never leave him, and he didn’t say anything but just reached for the rubbers and the lube in the bedside drawer.

Moments later Bradley was shoving into him, neither offering nor giving no quarter, maybe having finally realised that it wasn’t needed. Colin arched up beneath him, letting him in. Taking him in deep, letting Bradley thrust in so deep it was as if he were skewering his very soul.

♦

They lay closer now, perhaps too exhausted to bother moving apart, perhaps at last seeking a gentler kind of comfort. ‘All right?’ Bradley eventually asked when their breath no longer sounded so harsh in the dim empty room.

‘Yeah. You?’

‘Yeah.’ A pause lengthened, with Bradley obviously becoming more and more uncomfortable. ‘Look –’

‘It’s all right, you know,’ Colin announced to the ceiling. ‘You don’t have to explain or apologise.’

‘Don’t I?’ Bradley said bitterly, rhetorically.

‘No. We both needed that.’

‘Yeah? Would you have asked me, then? Would you have come to my room and asked me?’

‘No. But I wanted to.’

Bradley let that sit between them for a while. But eventually he had to ask, ‘Why wouldn’t you?’

‘Cos. You gotta know it means something different to me.’

‘Cos you’re gay.’

‘Bradley,’ he said, in tones that indicated this was the end of the discussion. ‘I wanted that. I wanted to do that for you, and you to do it for me. Don’t start beating yourself up over something you’ve no need to feel bad about.’

Bradley made a noncommittal grunt in response.

‘I thought it was us Catholics who did the guilt thing.’

‘Must have learned it by osmosis.’

Colin turned his head to see Bradley’s troubled expression. ‘Are you gonna be lying awake fretting about this all night?’

‘Probably.’

‘For my sake or yours?’

‘Yours.’ Bradley turned his head towards Colin, too. ‘I don’t have any problems being with a guy, if that’s what you’re asking. Got close to it a time or two before. What d’you call it? Near misses.’

‘Well, that’s good, then – and I’m fine, Bradley.’ He sighed, figuring the answer would be no: ‘Look, why don’t you stay here tonight? Then every time you start fretting about whether I minded or not, you can just ask me, and I’ll say, _I’m fine, Bradley, I’m fine, I wanted that even more than you did, you great eejit._ ’

Bradley had been watching him warily through all that, but at the conclusion he cracked a reluctant smile. ‘All right.’

‘All right,’ Colin repeated, dazed. ‘Good. Let’s get cleaned up, then, and settle.’

They each took turns in the bathroom, not showering, but just wiping themselves off with a flannel, and then Colin joined Bradley in the bed again. After a moment’s hesitation, Bradley turned towards him, shifted closer, and wound a friendly arm round Colin’s waist. ‘All right?’ he asked.

‘Yes. Perfect. Get some sleep, you idiot!’

And Bradley snorted, and settled in closer, and after a while he did just that.

♦

‘All right…?’ Bradley sleepily asked at some random moment in the darkness, when they’d both come to just enough to change positions and resettle with Colin wrapped around Bradley this time.

‘Yes, I’m fine, I love you, now go to sleep.’ And Colin slipped back away into a mindless doze – waking abruptly what must have been only minutes later as he belatedly registered Bradley’s tenseness and the obvious reason for it. ‘Oh fuck,’ he muttered dopily. ‘I wasn’t meant to say that.’

‘Col –’ Bradley whispered.

‘It’s all right, ignore me. I was dreaming. Didn’t know what I was saying.’

‘No. No, well, of course not.’

Colin sighed. ‘Ah. You’re only saying that cos you don’t think anyone could love you.’

‘Certainly haven’t so far!’

‘Well, congratulations. You just found the one exception to the rule. ’spose it’s ironic or something that I have the wrong bits.’

‘I’m not laughing.’

‘Me, neither.’

Silence.

‘Go to sleep, Bradley. This’ll be dead easy to forget about in the morning.’

More silence. And not the sort that indicated either of them were succumbing to sleep.

‘You’re not –’ started Bradley. ‘I mean, Nic. He – afterwards, he –’

‘’fraid I’m not such a drama queen, Bradley. No grand gestures from me. Anyway, they let it ruin their friendship, didn’t they? It wasn’t exactly consensual. None of that’s the case here. We’re gonna be fine, aren’t we? We’re gonna stay friends?’

‘Yeah. Course. If, uh…’

More silence.

‘If what, Bradley?’

‘If you’re OK, I’m OK. Of course.’

And yet Bradley still wouldn’t relax. Colin started trying to imagine all the possible reasons why. And then something rather bloody wonderful occurred to him.

‘Bradley,’ Colin tried. ‘D’you _want_ to be loved?’

‘Course I do,’ came the whispered reply.

‘I could do that for you. Well, I already do, and I ain’t gonna be stopping any time soon. You may as well enjoy it.’

‘That sounds like I’d be using you. Again.’

‘And again, I have no objection to being used. God knows, I know what a decent guy you are, beneath the bluff. I know you’d treat me right. You wanna… start seeing each other, or something?’

Bradley whispered, as if overawed, ‘D’you really think…?’

‘Yes! God, yes. Yes to everything you’re asking me right now.’

‘Well, maybe – maybe we could _try_ …’

Colin’s heart sang. ‘Oh my darlin’ eejit… Kiss me now, kiss me… _There_ , that was the sweetest thing… Oh, _Bradley_ … We can _try_ , sure, and it won’t take any effort at all.’

♦


End file.
